gvc3k said:
I know that 1 pound of fat is 3500 stored calories, and that if you want to lose 1 pound of fat per week you have to burn 500 more calories than you take in each day. So say you eat 2000 calories, that means you have to burn 2500 calories a day? What could you do to burn so many
I don't really understand your question... but I think you got either the math or the understanding wrong.
It goes like this:
you have something called BMR : Basal Metabolic Rate. This is how many calories you need just to be alive. It depends on how much Lean Body Mass you have in your body. Lets say that your current BMR is 2000 calories/day (just as an example).
You also have something called TDEE: Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is how many calories you need to maintain your current weight with the amount of exercise you do.
Let's say your TDEE is 3000 calories/day (again, only an example).
Now, if you were to eat 3000 calories every day, at the end of the week (after 7 days) you would have a 0 cals deficit; meaning you would be burning 0 lbs fat per week.
Now, since you want to burn 1 pound of fat per week, you need to create a weekly deficit of 3500 cals. Those are 500 cals/day BELOW your maintenance (TDEE). So that means you need to eat 2500 cals, instead of 3000.
At the end of the week, voila, 3500 cals deficit, 1 lb less of fat...
Boy do I wish this worked like this all the time... This is just the math behind this, in real world is not that straightforward, ad our bodies are not 100% effective at burning fat and sometimes you need to create a larger deficit to burn that lb of fat.
Cheers
Pintoca
PS. If you want to know what your current BMR and TDEE are, then go to:
http://elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=374938